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BANCROFT 
LIBRARY 

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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


Living  or  Dead 
Labor  Unions 


BY 
Caroline  Nelson 


Published  by 

THE  LABOR  UNION  EDUCATIONAL  LEAGUE 

KANSAS  CITY,  MO.  BOX  684 


Living  or  Dead 
Labor  Unions 


BY 
CAROLINE  NELSON 


This  pamphlet  is  the  outgrowth  of  "Aggressive  Unionism", 

which  was  sold  out,  in  the  Pacific  Coast  unions,  in 

a  short  time,  by  Carl  Rave,  who  gave  the 

Author  of  this,  many  valuable 

suggestions. 


PUBLISHED  BY 

THE  LABOR  UNION  EDUCATIONAL  LEAGUE 
Kansas  City,  Mo.  -  -  Box  684 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

War  and  the  Working  Class 3 

The  Evolution  of  the  Labor  Movement 5 

Revolution   and   Reform 8 

Industrial  Unionism 12 

Local  Autonomy 15 

The  Militant  Minority 18 

The  General  Strike 20 

The  Unemployed  Army 25 

The  Neo-Malthusion  Movement 27 

The  Neo-Malthusian  Movement 27 

Education  30 

Co-Operatives 31 


96 


WAR  AND  THE  WORKING  CLASS 

Every  day  in  every  country  there  is  an  army  of  men, 
women  and  children  rushing  forth  to  do  battle  with  all 
their  strength  of  their  bodies  and  minds  in  the  mines, 
mills  and  shops.  They  shiver  in  their  thin  clothing 
in  the  cold  winter  mornings.  They  hug  their  pieces  of 
bread  with  perhaps  a  slice  of  pie  and  bottle  of  cold 
coffee  for  their  lunch.  They  hitch  themselves  to  their 
machines  and  tools  that  callous  their  hands  and  callous 
their  minds  to  the  thundering,  roarings  of  the  machinery. 
But  they  cannot  callous  their  lungs  and  blood  to  poison- 
ous fumes,  to  stifling  air,  to  bad  food  and  to  little  rest. 
These  things  eat  away  their  vitality  and  make  them  old 
long  before  their  time. 

This  army  of  workers  struggle  now  here  and  now 
there  to  better  their  conditions.-  In  that  struggle  they 
have  to  take  their  lives  into  their  hands,  for  they  are 
clubbed  by  the  police,  shot  down  by  the  soldiers,  out- 
lawed by  the  courts,  and  while  they  work  they  are  often 
maimed  and  crippled.  This  is  the  working  class  war 
fought  with  empty  hands  for  the  principle  of  life.  Now 
and  then  they  gain,  now  and  then  they  are  beaten.  But 
forever  this  army  struggles  onward  throughout  the 
ages,  every  time  it  has  been  beaten  it  rises  again  and 
yet  again.  War  cannot  end  until  this  army  is  victorious ; 
for  it  cannot  and  will  not  make  peace  with  slavery  and 
injustice. 

In  the  working  class  war  all  property  and  the  lives 
of  their  enemies  are  held  to  be  sacred.  If  they  destroy 
any  lives,  machinery,  buildings,  they  are  called  mur- 
derers, hoodlums,  social  vipers,  etc. 

But  the  moment  the  privileged  classes  war,  both  prop- 
erty and  life  cease  to  be  sacred.  Here  the  same  deeds 
on  a  much  larger  scale  become  glorious  and  heroic. 
When  the  workers  kill  and  destroy  in  the  interest  of  the 
ruling  classes  they  are  patriots,  courageous  and  brave. 
What  kind  of  ethics  are  these?  They  are  ruling  class 
ethics.  They  are  nothing  but  shams  and  hypocrisy. 


4  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

Did  the  working  class  in  Europe  want  to  go  to  war  in 

the  interest  of  their  ruling  classes,  who  like  thieves  fight 
over  their  ill-gotten  privileges?  No. 

The  German  workers  had  no  grievance  against  the 
Belgian,  the  French  or  English.  But  they  were  told  that 
the  barbaric  Russians  stood  at  the  border-line,  ready  to 
gobble  up  their  fatherland  and  to  sweep  away  what 
freedom  they  had.  They  became  eager  to  go  "soldiering." 
They  marched  on  the  Belgians  and  the  French.  The 
Belgians  and  the  French  workers  were  in  turn  carried 
away  by  similar  claims,  this  includes  the  English. 

The  English  workers  were  really  the  only  workers 
who  had  the  liberty  to  refuse  to  go  to  war,  as  they 
are  not  conscripts.  But  the  English  women  were  used 
to  shame  the  men  into  going  to  war.  To  arouse  the 
noblest  of  human  passions  and  emotions  by  the  lowest 
trickery  to  get  what  they  want,  is  the  game  of  the  ruling 
classes. 

Anyhow,  the  workers'  internationalism  was  only 
formed  in  the  abstract.  There  was  practically  no  organ- 
ization formed  to  prevent  war.  Such  an  organization 
can  only  come  into  being  when  the  workers  realize  that 
they  must  be  in  a  position  to  declare  a  general  strike  to 
avoid  it. 

In  the  meantime  war  has  been  carried  right  into  the 
homes  of  the  rich,  by  the  airships.  This  placing  the  rich 
ladies  and  gentlemen  in  constant  danger  of  governmental 
bombs  from  the  air  is  too  cruel.  Nice  ladies  who  used 
to  worship  the  gold-braided  officer  and  his  profession 
have  suddenly  become  aware  of  the  brutality  of  war. 

This  may  lead  to  the  establishment  of  an  international 
police  force,  in  the  name  of  peace,  and  the  abolishing  of 
the  national  armies.  In  other  words,  the  world's  ruling 
classes  will  unite  against  the  world's  working  class, 
under  the  protection  of  a  cossack  clan.  This  will  make 
the  working  class'  battle  clear,  and  sweep  the  field  clear 
for  the  struggle  of  the  real  issue — the  abolition  of  a 
privileged  economic  class  with  its  gunmen,  its  false  ethics, 
and  its  social  hypocrisy  that  lays  claim  to  a  natural  and 
moral  superiority.  The  workers  may  not  be  in  a  mood  to 


LABOR  UNIONS  5 

be  tricked  any  more  with  fake  peace;  they  may  gather 
from  all  the  world  and  decide  this  matter  for  themselves 
in  their  own  interest. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

Auguste  Comte  says:  "Every  social  problem  goes 
through  three  stages,  viz. :  the  metaphysical,  the  abstract 
and  the  concrete."  No  doubt,  our  modern  religions  have 
grown  out  of  human  attempts  to  solve  social  problems  by 
speculations. 

The  labor  unions  were  born  in  the  shops  among 
hostile  surroundings.  The  world  through  them  became 
aware  of  the  sufferings  and  the  unrest  of  the  working 
class.  Wise  men  came  forward  to  solve  the  labor  problem 
by  beautiful  ideals  and  dreams  about  a  glorious  brother- 
hood here  on  earth.  They  had  an  idea  that  the  human 
race  advanced  by  having  beautiful  ideals  placed  before 
it,  and  that  the  labor  movement  would  disappear  in  the 
universal  good  will  of  an  ideal  working  class  and  an 
ideal  employing  class.  These  metaphysical  dreams  ut- 
terly failed,  while  they  helped  to  blur  the  vision  of  the 
workers  for  the  time  being. 

Along  comes  Karl  Marx  with  his  "CAPITAL."  He 
showed  that  human  society  is  not  built  out  of  dreams 
but  out  of  economic  necessity,  and  that  modern  society 
is  under  the  control  of  capital.  This  capital  is  created 
by  the  workers  by  surplus  labor.  Surplus  labor  means 
that  portion  of  social  labor  which  they  put  into  the  prod- 
ucts which  they  do  not  get  paid  for.  Everything  is  valued 
according  to  the  labor  put  into  it,  but  by  the  wage 
system  the  employing  class  get  value  created  by  labor, 
which  they  do  not  pay  for.  This  is  surplus  value.  This 
surplus  value  creates  capital. 

Capital  ever  tends  to  center  into  fewer  and  fewer 
hands,  forming  trusts  and  monopolies,  that  in  turn  tend 
toward  the  control  of  society  through  life's  necessities. 
Karl  Marx  thought  that  this  centralization  of  capital 
would  put  the  middle  class  out  of  business,  and  that 


6  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

society  would  form  itself  into  two  main  groups — the  few 
capitalists  on  one  side  and  the  immense  working  class 
on  the  other.  This  has  not  happened.  The  middle 
classes  today  flourish  on  the  credit  system  and  the  com- 
mon share-holding  system,  to  say  nothing  of  the  numer- 
ous agencies  and  official  positions  that  our  complicated 
civilization  calls  for. 

The  labor  movement  through  the  Marxian  influence 
was  taken  out  of  the  dream  world.  Very  well,  but  the 
principle  of  social  evolution  became  a  materialist  pre- 
destination doctrine,  almost  as  dogmatic  as  the  spiritual- 
istic. The  trusts  were  represented  as  the  forerunners 
of  .the  co-operative  commonwealth.  The  labor  move- 
ment on  the  economic  field  was  made  secondary  to  the 
socialist  party.  The  workers  began  to  see  the  folly  of 
this. 

A  new  movement  under  the  name  of  syndicalism  came 
into  being.  It  held  its  first  international  congress  in 
London  in  1913,  where  directly  and  indirectly  fourteen 
countries  were  represented.  The  South  American  dele- 
gation promised  to  have  600,000  syndicalists  in  the  field, 
in  the  very  near  future.  An  international  correspondence 
bureau  was  formed  there,  which  has  its  headquarters  in 
Amsterdam,  Holland,  17  Riesenstraat,  where  it  publishes 
a  paper. 

The  first  "red"  International  declared  that  the  free- 
dom of  the  workers  must  be  accomplished  by  their  own 
work.  So  do  the  syndicalists,  and  add — that  the  workers 
have  all-sufficient  power  on  the  economic  field  to  do  so. 

The  labor  movement  here  becomes  a  concrete  move- 
ment in  the  hands  of  the  workers  themselves. 

The  women  and  children  become  a  part  of  it,  since  it 
is  no  longer  a  movement  mothered  by  the  wise  and 
fathered  by  learned  academicians,  who  can  only  impress 
the  metaphysical  and  the  scientific-minded.  True,  these 
wise  and  learned  people  shielded  the  proletarian  infant, 
born  among  the  people  who  were  regarded  as  animals,  by 
the  brutal  ruling  classes.  Now  that  the  movement  has 
grown  to  manhood  and  insists  on  performing  its  own 
mission  in  its  own  way,  its  foster  parents — "the  learned 


LABOR  UNIONS  7 

and  the  wise" — weep  and  predict  dire  failure,  and  some- 
times curses  and  disowns  it  as  a  child  of  the  slum 
proletariat  in  league  with  the  dreadful  anarchists.  They 
promise  all  sorts  of  help  and  blessings,  if  only  the  naughty 
labor  movement  will  follow  their  advice  and  be  tied  to 
their  apron  strings  and  be  nice  and  respectable,  which  is 
the  only  way  to  success. 

The  labor  movement  in  turn  has  a  great  affection  for 
the  "wise  and  the  learned''  with  their  conservatism  and 
outworn  methods  and  ideas.  Its  struggles  away  from 
this  conservatism  within  itself  is  a  herculean  effort.  But 
it  is  only  the  sign  of  new  life,  where  the  labor  organiza- 
tions will  become  vibrant  with  new  activities,  and  be- 
come the  real  institutions  of  the  working  class. 

The  workers  cease  to  be  parrots  of  the  "wise  and  the 
learned."  They  will  not  repeat,  for  instance,  that  the 
middle  class  is  going  out  of  business,  when  a  blind  bat 
can  see  that  they  are  increasing. 

The  increased  rented  and  mortgaged  farms  in  the 
United  States  is  not  due  to  the  farmers  getting  poor  and 
going  out  of  business.  It  is  due  to  increased  land-value. 
The  farmers  finding  that  their  lands  have  increased  in 
value  to  such  an  extent  that  they  can  sell  or  rent  them 
out  and  move  into  Easy  street,  do  so.  The  renter  and 
mortgagee  are  hard  driven  by  the  financial  powers,  just 
like  the  small  business  elements  are  in  the  towns.  They 
are  usually  bitter  against  unionism,  and  delude  them- 
selves with  the  idea  that  the  high  cost  of  living  is  due  to 
high  wages,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  rise  of  wages 
is  far  behind  increased  cost  of  living. 

Harvest  workers  are  lured  into  the  farm  districts 
yearly  by  the  offer  of  high  wages  and  many  months  of 
work,  to  find  only  a  few  weeks'  work  at  half  the  wages 
that  a  mechanic  gets  in  town.  While  the  farmers  them- 
selves organize  to  hold  their  grains  for  the  highest  price, 
they  get  constables  to  shoot  down  the  workers  who  at- 
tempt to  organize  to  get  the  highest  price  for  their  labor- 
power. 

The  best  social  protection  for  a  ruling  class  is  a  large 
middle  class;  for  their  social  ideal  swirls  around  their  bit 


8  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

of  property  and  business  interests.  They  largely  form 
the  public  opinion  that  reacts  powerfully  on  the  minds 
of  the  working  class.  Their  cry  is  for  reform — for  the 
patching  up  of  the  worn-out  social  system.  They  natur- 
ally look  with  horror  upon  the  proposition  of  the  workers 
gaining  control  of  the  industries.  They  see  in  that  the 
disappearance  of  their  bit  of  property  and  their  chance 
gone  to  forge  ahead  individually  for  property.  They  in- 
sist that  it  is  bad  for  the  workers  to  fight  directly  for 
power  in  the  shops ;  that  they  must  only  vote  for  it  and 
get  the  right  politician  in  the  parliament,  or  confine  them- 
selves to  committees  to  peacefully  dicker  with  the  bosses 
All  this  reflects  itself  in  the  working  class  minds ;  it  re- 
flects itself  in  their  unions  and  in  their  press,  and  creates 
a  dead,  dull,  mere  dues-paying  membership,  with  the 
temporary  purpose  of  getting  a  job. 

The  fostering  of  a  large  and  more  contented  middle 
class  is  everywhere  seen.  Different  governments  are 
setting  aside  money  to  be  lent  out  at  the  lowest  possible 
rate  to  enable  men  to  purchase  parcels  of  land.  The 
rural  credit  system  is  another  means  of  strengthening 
the  middle  class,  and  to  create  a  contented  farming  class 
for  the  present  system.  Nowhere,  except  in  the  minds  of 
the  would-be  Marxians,  do  we  see  any  signs  of  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  middle  class. 

The  new  labor  movement  separates  itself  from  the 
middle  class  with  its  catch  phrases  about  the  salvation  of 
the  human  race.  When  the  workers  throw  off  their 
human  parasites  by  attending  to  their  own  business  and 
by  setting  their  own  house  in  order,  humanity  needs  no 
more  salvation  than  any  other  living  species. 


REVOLUTION    AND    REFORM 

The  revolutionists  are  the  workers  who  have  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  a  society  divided  against  itself 
by  opposite  economic  interests  cannot  stand.  They  do 
not  believe  that  any  kind  of  reform  can  bring  about  hap- 
piness and  good  will  among  mankind  as  long  as  the 


LABOR  UNIONS  9 

wage  system  lasts.  They  see  that  even  if  the  workers 
get  to  the  point  where  they  get  enough  wages 
to  live  fairly  comfortably,  that  as  long  as  they 
do  not  get  the  full  product  of  their  labor  that 
they  will  not  be  satisfied.  And  that  even  if  they 
become  satisfied,  capital  and  the  scramble  for  it, 
corrupts  the  whole  of  society.  It  creates  gambling,  pros- 
titution of  mind  and  body,  trickery,  blackmailing  and  it 
gives  economic  advantages  and  training  to  certain  mem- 
bers, while  it  deprives  those  certain  advantages  to  other 
members,  thereby  artificially  creating  a  superior  class 
that  may  be  naturally  inferior,  who  can  lord  it  over 
those  who  may  be  naturally  superior.  For  that  reason 
the  revolutionists  aim  straight  for  the  overthrow  of  the 
wage  system. 

But  the  reformer  says :  You  cannot  overthrow  society 
by  one  thing  in  one  blow.  True,  says  the  revolutionist, 
but  experience  teaches  me  that  no  set  of  human  beings 
get  anywhere  without  a  distinct  object  in  view.  "Hitch 
your  wagon  to  a  star,"  is  a  saying  that  everyone  under- 
stands. It  means  to  aim  at  the  highest,  even  though  it 
seems  impossible  to  attain.  This  aim  concentrates  the 
energy  and  effort  made.  It  becomes  an  inspiration  where 
petty  quarrels  and  aimlessness  disappear.  When  the 
whole  labor  movement  or  even  a  portion  of  it  becomes 
imbued  with  the  revolutionary  object,  its  activity  will 
carry  in  its  train  reforms  proposed  and  carried  out  by  the 
upper  class  to  save  itself.  Whereas  the  workers  who 
merely  beg  for  a  few  more  crumbs  from  society  in  various 
reforms,  usually  get  them  full  of  jokers,  and  they  lose 
sight  of  their  class-power. 

Almost  from  the  very  start  of  the  revolutionary  idea, 
the  workers  have  been  divided  into  two  camps — the  politi- 
cal socialist  and  the  economic  socialist.  The  political 
socialist  contended  that  the  capitalist  governmental  ma- 
chinery had  to  be  captured,  first,  to  keep  the  police,  the 
militia  and  the  troops  away  from  the  workers  while  they 
fought  for  better  conditions  ;  second,  to  have  the  govern- 
ment overtake  all  social  production  and  distribution.  It 
seems  very  easy,  once  the  workers  gained  the  franchise. 


10  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

It  has  proven  a  failure.  Wherever  the  laborites  and 
socialists  in  New  Zealand,  Australia,  France,  England 
and  other  places  have  got  into  political  power,  they  have 
invariably  been  a  surprise  to  the  upper  class,  who  ex- 
pected them  to  do  some  harm  to  their  privilege,  while 
they  have  been  a  sad  disappointment  to  the  workers,  who 
expected  them  to  do  something  for  them.  It  has  been 
found  that  the  police  under  a  socialist  mayor  club  the 
workers,  when  they  are  socalled  violent  and  out  on  a 
strike,  just  as  hard  as  any  other  police.  We  shall  see 
later  on  how  a  socialist  prime  minister  protected  the 
workers.  The  socialists  in  America  boasted  for  years 
that  they  had  a  party  where  the  candidates  were  abso- 
lutely under  the  control  of  the  party,  because  whenever 
they  gained  office  they  were  required  to  sign  their  resigna- 
tion and  leave  it  in  the  hands  of  the  party.  They  tried  that 
on  a  socialist  mayor  in  California,  who  said  :  "I  am  not 
mayor  of  the  socialist  party;  I  am  mayor  of  Berkeley," 
or  something  to  that  effect.  Once  a  candidate  has  climbed 
into  official  power  in  our  system,  he  must  protect  that 
system,  or  be  ousted  as  a  traitor  or  inefficient. 

Wherever  the  political  socialists  have  gained  power 
a  reaction  has  set  in  against  political  action.  A  cry  for 
direct  action  from  the  workers  has  gone  up.  Even  the 
conservative  labor  federations  of  Sweden  and  Germany 
saw  the  necessity  of  withdrawing  all  official  connection 
with  the  socialist  party. 

When  Berger,  the  first  socialist  congressman  in  the 
United  States,  was  elected  the  party  realized  that  it  must 
clear  its  skirts  from  sabotage,  or  direct  action  where  the 
workers  fight  the  boss  with  slow  work  or  bad  work, 
or  anything  else  that  hurts  his  profit.  While  the  capitalists 
themselves  have  no  laws  against  sabotage,  the  socialist 
party  voluntarily  constituted  itself  a  police  force  to  pro- 
tect the  bosses,  by  an  amendment  to  their  constitution, 
with  the  object  of  gaining  more  political  power,  which 
failed  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  gradual  political 
reform  program  of  the  socialist  could  be  duplicated  by 
the  progressive,  middle-class  people.  The  workers,  there- 
fore, all  over  the  world,  are  losing  faith  in  political  social- 


LABOR  UNIONS  11 

ism,  where  they  do  not  openly  fight  it;  they  feel  that 
whatever  political  rights  they  have  and  whatever  politi- 
cal reforms  they  want,  they  can  best  protect  and  get  them 
by  showing  their  organized  economic  strength  and  influ- 
ence. They  know  that  all  they  have  ever  got,  political 
or  otherwise,  they  have  gotten  not  by  the  laws,  but 
in  spite  of  them.  They  know  that  government  ownership 
will  not  save  them.  They  know  that  the  government  is 
as  hard  a  slave-driver  as  a  trust,  and  a  great  deal  worse 
to  fight. 

The  economic  socialist  or  syndicalist  is  therefore  com- 
ing on  the  scene  with  his  direct  action  of  sabotage,  the 
sympathy  strike,  the  intermittent  strike,  the  general 
strike  and  the  mass  strike,  etc.  Ten  times  to  one,  the 
syndicalist  is  a  graduate  from  the  socialist  political  school. 
If  he  is  a  terrorist,  who  has  taught  him  that  only  so-called 
terror  will  get  the  working  class  anything?  Answer, 
principally  the  utter  failure  of  the  socialist  party,  with  its 
compromises,  its  smug,  respectable  Bergers,  Spargos, 
John  Burns,  Briands,  etc. 

The  socialist  party  constitution  has  no  clause  in  it  for- 
bidding its  members  to  become  policemen,  militiamen  or 
soldiers.  In  other  words,  it  does  not  forbid  its  members 
to  commit  violence  on  the  working  class  in  the  name  of 
law.  It  does  not  make  it  unlawful  for  their  members  to 
carry  arms  against  the  worker,  and  to  violate  his  most 
sacred  property — his  body — when  it  is  done  in  the  name 
of  law  and  order. 

The  economic  socialist  proposes  to  reconstruct  a  new 
society  of  his  own  organizations  on  the  economic  field. 
He  is  doing  so  now  in  his  labor  unions,  his  co-operatives 
and  his  educational  institutions.  The  great  trouble  with 
the  conservative  labor  movement  is  that  it  does  not  recog- 
nize the  importance  of  educating  the  workers,  apart  from 
the  system-educators,  who  are  helpless  and  powerless 
in  becoming  real  educators  as  long  as  thev  are  under  the 
control  of  the  upper  classes  and  their  ethics.  How  many 
a  teacher  has  not  been  made  to  recognize  this  bitterly? 
Why  do  the  millionaires  endow  universities? — to  control 
learning.  Why  do  the  rich  build  magnificent  churches, 


12  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

where  they  invite  the  worker  to  worship,  while  they 
draw  high  rents  from  shabby  tenements? — to  control  re- 
ligious beliefs. 

All  the  writers  who  have  come  forward  of  late  years 
to  voice  the  interests  of  the  workers,  all  the  committees 
instituted  to  investigate  their  wrongs,  are  the  result  of 
the  violent  stirrings  of  the  workers  themselves.  The 
workers  cannot  stir  in  the  bottom  without  stirring  the 
whole  of  the  social  structure.  Therefore,  the  one  who 
is  out  telling  the  workers  not  to  stir,  that  it  does  more 
harm  than  good — does  not  know  what  he  talks  about. 

Finally,  the  social  revolution  means  the  throwing 
aside  of  the  old  order,  to  give  room  for  the  new  that  has 
grown  up  underneath.  What  that  shall  be  depends  upon 
the  workers  today  who  are  laying  the  foundation  of  that 
society,  which  is  a  very  good  reason  why  centralized 
authority  in  the  organizations  should  be  fought  to  death, 
less  we  shall  only  build  up  a  new  tyranny. 


INDUSTRIAL    UNIONISM 

The  Knights  of  Labor  in  America  organized  en  masse. 
They  went  down  and  the  A.  F.  of  L.  that  organized  on 
the  minute  craft  line  took  its  place.  The  K.  of  L.  was 
supposed  to  be  an  industrial  organization,  and  when  it 
went  down  industrial  unionism  received  a  bad  name. 
Owing  to  the  many  weaknesses  shown  in  the  craft 
division  industrial  unionism  again  came  to  the  front,  and 
for  some  years  industrial  unionism  was  supposed  to 
be  the  sum  and  substance  of  revolutionary  unionism  that 
was  a  final  cure  for  all  the  ills  of  the  working  class. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  industrial  unionism  has 
largely  held  sway  in  Germany,  where  it  has  been  shown 
that  industrial  unionism  is  and  can  be  as  conservative  as 
any  other  kind  of  unionism.  In  the  summer  of  1913  the 
shipbuilding  workers,  belonging  to  the  powerful,  indus- 
trial, metal  workers  organization,  rushed  out  on  a  strike, 


LABOR  UNIONS  13 

after  they  had  petitioned  their  authoritative  officials  for 
two  years  to  be  allowed  to  fight  to  improve  their  condi- 
tions. Thanks  to  the  strict  discipline  in  Germany,  they 
were  chased  back  to  their  slavery  by  their  own  central- 
ized, authority  officials. 

The  Butte  copper  miners  were  industrially  organized 
when  they  blew  up  their  own  headquarters  in  1914  to 
make  an  end  to  the  official  machine  that  dominated  them. 
There  were  twelve  thousand  miners  in  one  big  union, 
who  had  a  building  of  their  own  with  a  hall  that  held 
less  than  one  thousand  members.  Only  so  many  members 
out  of  twelve  thousand  could  get  in  the  meeting.  The 
machine  men  always  got  to  the  meeting  first;  they  were 
always  in  the  majority  in  the  hall.  So  that  while  the 
crafts  unions,  such  as  the  carpenters,  the  bricklayers,  the 
plumbers,  etc.,  raised  their  wages,  the  industrially  union- 
ized workers'  wages  stood  still,  while  they  were  really  the 
whole  support  of  the  town. 

Craft  unionism  is  gradually  disappearing  in  the  A.  F. 
of  L.  The  minute  crafts  divisions  merge  in  the  general 
trades  and  industries  more  and  more. 

The  organizations  in  the  A.  F.  of  L.  have  trade 
autonomy,  but  not  local  autonomy.  Their  authority  is 
centralized  in  their  international  executive  boards.  It  has 
the  warp  of  freedom,  but  not  the  woof  to  weave  it  into 
a  whole  cloth.  Local  autonomy  knits  the  workers  to- 
gether, while  national  trade  autonomy  compel  union 
workers  to  scab  on  one  another.  One  trade  goes  on 
strike  leaving  all  the  others  on  the  job.  A  single  trade 
cannot  fight  successfully  nowadays,  not  even  with  the 
money  donated  by  the  unions  that  stay  on  the  jobs. 

Workers  cannot  fight  with  money;  they  cannot  win 
by  putting  up  their  pennies  alongside  the  capitalists'  gold. 
A  long  strike  means  slowly  starving  the  workers  out. 
A  strike  to  win  must  be  a  quick  solar  plexus  blow, 
economically  by  cutting  off  the  trade  or  shop  completely 
by  sympathy  strikes.  So  that  trade  autonomy  is  worse 
than  no  autonomy  without  local  autonomy.  Some  organ- 
izations now  have  local  autonomy,  but  it  cannot  be  ef- 
fective until  all  have  it. 


14  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

The  Chinese  walls  of  high  initiation  fees,  high  dues 
and  closed  books  which  some  of  the  unions  in  the  A.  F. 
of  L.  have  erected,  is  another  source  of  bitterness  of  the 
workers  outside  the  unions,  and  very  naturally,  for  it 
keeps  them  out.  These  walls  are  breaking  down.  The 
workers  find  that  by  locking  their  fellow  workers  out 
of  their  unions  they  lock  themselves  out  of  the  shop, 
instead  of  locking  the  boss  out. 

The  skilled  mechanic  has  for  ages  regarded  himself 
as  an  aristocrat,  in  comparison  with  the  laborer.  In 
modern  times  one  highly  skilled  craft  aftci  another  dis- 
appears in  the  machine,  where  it  is  put  into  the  hands 
of  women  and  children.  New  skills,  of  course,  come  up, 
but  on  the  whole  the  skilled  mechanic  feels  uncertain 
of  his  job  and  his  skill.  Half  the  time  in  the  year  he  is 
without  a  job  in  the  building  trades,  and  he  never  knows 
when  he  may  be  glad  to  get  a  laborer's  job.  Under  these 
conditions  this  aristocracy  in  the  working  class  disap- 
pears. To  deny  this  and  to  still  harp  upon  the  evil  of 
aristocracy  of  labor  is  to  prevent  the  solidarity  of  the 
workers,  by  forcibly  opening  the  fast  healing  wounds. 
Such  chauvinism  is  out  of  order. 

The  so-called  unskilled  worker  in  all  parts  of  the 
world  has  been  slower  to  organize  than  the  so-called 
skilled.  Now  that  he  has  begun  to  organize  in  earnest, 
many  phrase  mongers  are  out  pointing  to  the  skilled 
workers  as  his  real  enemy,  who  has  kept  him  down,  and 
who  is  keeping  him  down.  The  skilled  worker  is  here 
put  up  as  a  target  to  shield  the  privileged  class,  which 
is  fine  and  dandy  for  the  bosses. 

Out  of  industrial  unionism  the  industrial  democracy 
must  grow.  But  if  this  industrial  democracy  is  to  consist 
of  the  privilege  of  the  rank  and  file  to  vote  their  indus- 
trial power  into  the  hands  of  a  few  central  officials,  this 
kind  of  democracy  will  be  no  better  than  the  kind  of 
democracy  that  we  have  now,  which  has  failed.  The 
privilege  of  voting  our  power  out  of  our  hands  is  a  new 
way  of  fooling  ourselves  by  grasping  at  the  shadow  of 
democracy. 


LABOR  UNIONS  15 

If  industrial  democracy  does  not  mean  that  the  work- 
ers can  gather  wherever  they  work,  and  by  their  own 
majority  vote,  make  their  own  conditions  under  which 
they  shall  work,  then  it  does  not  mean  anything.  Then 
it  is  merely  a  new  creed. 

The  machine  is  the  producing  center  that  equalizes 
the  workers  using  it.  No  set  of  workers  would  be  able 
to  monopolize  the  different  machines.  The  workers  who 
build  the  machines,  build  them  to  sell  or  to  exchange 
them  for  all  the  good  things  of  life  produced  by  other 
workers.  It  is  only  by  the  wage  system,  which  produces 
capital,  that  the  machine  can  be  monopolized  by  a  set  of 
capitalists. 

The  economic  needs  of  the  human  family,  whose  mem- 
bers have  equal  economic  opportunity,  with  no  privilege 
to  use  any  other  member  for  his  personal  gain,  will  inter- 
link the  human  race  in  what  one  might  call — one  big 
union.  But  the  moment  that  one  big  union  tried  to  gather 
around  a  set  of  authoritative  officials,  that  moment  it 
would  split  into  factions,  each  faction  wanting  a  different 
set  of  rulers,  or  public  servants,  as  they  would  call  them 
to  hide  the  real  facts. 


LOCAL    AUTONOMY 

Local  autonomy  is  the  watchword  of  the  new  labor 
movement.  The  workers  find  that  they  can  best  fight 
for  their  rights  by  making  demands  and  threatening 
strikes  when  the  boss  needs  them  the  most.  To  give 
the  bosses  long  notice  of  a  strike  is  to  give  them  a  chance 
to  prepare  to  defeat  them.  But  if  they  have  centralized 
their  power  to  act  in  the  shop  in  authoritative  officials 
who  are  miles  away  from  the  scene,  they  have  to  dicker 
with  them  for  permission.  The  authoritative  officials  in 
turn  dicker  with  the  bosses  or  their  representative  until 
the  scabs  are  collected  and  the  urgent  work  finished,  and 
a  victorious  strike  becomes  impossible. 

The  employing  class,  being  the  privileged  class,  forms 
the  state  machinery  with  its  central,  political  authority,  to 


16  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

protect  them  in  their  individual  and  collective  liberty  of 
exploiting  the  workers  upon  the  industrial  field.  They 
insist  on  having  the  right  to  run  their  own  business. 
They  do  not  ask  the  State,  their  central  authority,  if  they 
may  lock  their  workers  out  and  upon  what  terms  they 
shall  take  them  back  to  work.  On  the  contrary,  they 
have  the  right  to  call  upon  the  authorities  to  help  them 
win  a  fight  over  the  workers,  by  having  the  scabs  pro- 
tected and  the  workers'  leaders  jailed  upon  some  pretext. 
Here  we  have  the  State  at  the  beck  and  call  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  collective  employer. 

The  centralization  of  the  financial  power  in  the  Wall 
Streets  is  not  an  authoritative  central  power  over  the 
industries.  They  are  mere  gambling  houses  of  fictitious 
or  real  values  of  shares  in  them. 

The  organized  shop  power  of  the  bosses  is  vested  in 
the  Merchants,  Manufacturers  and  Employers  Associa- 
tions. They  have  local  autonomy,  and  centralize  nation- 
ally and  internationally  in  a  common  economic  interest, 
and  not  by  placing  their  local  power  to  act  in  the  hands 
of  a  few  national  officers  but  even  if  they  did,  it  would 
be  no  excuse  for  the  workers  to  tie  their  own  hands 
locally. 

Authoritative  officials  naturally  become  conservative. 

The  responsibility  rests  upon  them  in  a  fight,  and  they 
must  be  on  good  terms  with  the  conservative  majority. 
But  the  workers  do  not  develop  any  initiative ;  they  are 
so  many  dumb,  driven  cattle  in  their  unions  as  well  as  in 
the  shop.  They  expect  their  officials  to  act  for  them,  in- 
stead of  getting  together  to  act  for  themselves. 

Central  authority  is  the  most  potent  force  in  creating 
dead  unions  and  arrogant  officials  and  political  machines 
in  the  labor  movement. 

First  and  foremost  the  workers  must  have  liberty  to 
act  in  their  own  unions.  They  must  know  what  they 
want  and  plan  how  to  get  it. 

The  common  understanding  of  economic  interest  will 
bring  solidarity  in  the  working  class  that  will  centralize 
the  energy  far  better  than  any  coercive  arrangement 
could. 


LABOR  UNIONS  17 

Local  autonomy  does  not  mean  local  separation.     It 

means  local  co-ordination  to  the  whole  body.  Central 
authority  demands  local  subordination,  which  means  local 
weakness,  and  local  weakness  means  weakness  all  along 
the  line. 

This  is  wrell  proven  in  Germany  and  the  Scandinavian 
countries,  where  centralization  and  local  subordination  is 
the  order,  and  where  ultra-conservatism  with  its  failure, 
have  created  rebellion  within  the  labor  movement  itself, 
which  have  resulted  in  dual  movements  and  syndicalist 
leagues. 

It  does  not  do  much  good  to  have  a  few  organizations 
have  local  autonomy;  labor  must  stand  together  in  strikes 
with  their  sympathy  strikes. 

During  the  Bismarck  persecution  in  Germany,  where 
the  workers  were  forced  to  act  secretly  together  locally, 
these  workers  learned  the  great  power  of  local  freedom. 
And  when  the  workers  got  the  right  to  organize  there, 
the  question  at  once  swung  around  local  autonomy.  But 
centralized  authority  gained  the  day.  Now  come  the 
"localites"  and  prove  that  they  were  right.  They  kept 
their  organization  in  the  field,  which  now  forms  the  syn- 
dicalist organization  in  Germany,  with  headquarters  in 
Berlin.  It  was  the  "Localites"  who  plastered  Berlin  with 
anti-military  placards,  after  war  was  declared. 

In  the  Bourses  du  Travails,  local  liberty  again  proved 
its  virility,  as  it  was  in  the  Bourses  that  syndicalism,  or 
revolutionary  unionism,  first  sprouted  forth.  The  Bourses 
with  their  lecture  courses,  their  labor  councils  and  techni- 
cal instructions,  gave  the  labor  movement  in  France  new 
life.  And  its  tactics  and  principle  of  organization  are 
spreading  over  the  world.  The  workers  have  been  so 
enslaved  and  misled  that  they  do  not  see  that  co-ordina- 
tion throughout  nature  forms  the  strongest  organization. 
They  were  under  the  delusion  that  a  highly  paid 
bureauracy  in  the  labor  movement  could  whip  the  work- 
ing class  into  line  by  flourishing  the  whip  of  discipline, 
which  simply  means  that  the  workers  did  not  trust  the 
workers,  that  suspicion  and  hatred  of  their  own  class 
members  dominated  their  minds,  making  all  real  organ- 
ization impossible. 


18  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

THE  MILITANT  MINORITY 

The  budding  of  new  life  on  all  lines  of  social  progress, 
in  art,  science  and  literature,  in  the  pulpit,  press  and  the 
labor  movement,  produces  new  ideas  and  new  spirits, 
expressed  through  a  militant  minority.  The  militant 
minority  are  the  social  rough  riders.  They  ride  rough- 
shod over  old  methods  and  old  ways  and  storm  the  con- 
servative stronghold.  They  are  usually  cursed  while  they 
live  and  blessed  long  after  they  are  dead.  The  man  who 
seeks  popularity  and  gets  it  is  usually  a  mere  echo  of 
the  dead  past. 

The  upheaval  in  the  labor  movement  in  the  last  few 
years  the  world  over  is  a  healthy  sign  of  new  life.  Nearly 
every  union  has  its  militant  minority,  or  rough  necks,  who 
challenge  the  old  leaders,  the  old  methods  and  the  old 
tactics.  But  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  old  is 
tenacious  and  the  new  feeble  and  real  progress  slow.  A 
good  many  militants  start  out  with  an  eagerness  that 
burns  itself  out  in  a  short  time,  and  after  that  they  sing 
the  song — "it  is  no  use." 

Blusterers  and  bullies  should  not  be  mistaken  for  mili- 
tants. They  are  often  stool  pigeons  and  disrupters.  The 
militant  fights  in  his  organization  to  get  it  to  fight  for 
better  conditions,  and  to  help  all  other  organizations  to 
fight  for  better  conditions.  He  knows  that  better  condi- 
tions are  not  going  to  be  handed  to  the  workers  on  a 
silver  platter,  because  they  form  mutual  admiration  socie- 
ties with  benefit  systems. 

The  militant  minority  understand  that  the  working 
class  have  a  common  interest,  and  that  when  one  organ- 
ization is  defeated,  it  acts  as  a  signal  for  a  general  on- 
slaught of  the  employing  class.  A  victory,  on  the  other 
hand,  arouses  the  courage  and  aspiration  of  the  workers. 
The  militant  is  therefore  not  a  mere  trade  unionist ;  he  is 
a  working  class  unionist.  Nor  does  he  cater  to  public 
opinion ;  he  knows  that  public  opinion  is  a  wall  of  con- 
servatism that  must  be  broken  down. 

The  best  way  to  curb  a  militant  member  is  to  give  him 
an  office  with  a  good  salary.  He  gets  away  from  the 


LABOR  UNIONS  19 

toil  and  sweat  and  uncertainty  of  a  job  and  becomes  a 
member  of  the  official  family,  where  he  sees  the  world 
from  a  pleasanter  view,  and  comes  under  the  domination 
of  conservatism. 

The  employing  class  always  had  a  militant  minority 
that  broke  away  from  old  methods,  which  enabled  them 
to  go  forward  in  small  bunches  to  try  out  new  methods 
of  production,  and  new  ways  of  getting  more  out  of  the 
workers,  by  new  ways  of  working  them  and  controlling 
them.  If  the  capitalists  had  been  so  organized  that  they 
could  not  go  ahead  until  the  majority  of  them  voted  for  it 
nationally,  there  wrould  have  been  another  story  to  tell  of 
the  capitalists. 

The  militant  minority  among  the  workers  can  only 
gain  a  hearing  where  there  is  local  freedom  to  act.  A 
locality  may  then  go  ahead  to  show  the  majority  through- 
out the  nation  what  can  be  done  or  cannot  be  done,  as  the 
conditions  do  not  differ  so  very  much  in  different  local- 
ties  in  modern  times. 

The  conservative  unionist  is  always  trotting  out 
statistics  to  show  how  much  the  wages  have  increased, 
and  how  much  the  work-day  has  shortened.  But  he  for- 
gets to  show  how  much  the  cost  of  living  has  increased, 
and  how  the  speeding-up  system  takes  more  energy  out  of 
the  worker  in  eight  hours  now  than  the  ten  and  twelve 
hours  did. 

Only  a  small  portion  of  the  workers  have  an  eight- 
hour  day,  while  the  productive  methods  have  doubled  in 
speed  since  it  was  first  demanded.  So  that  if  labor  had 
kept  up  with  the  times,  four  hours  a  day  should  now  be 
agitated  for  and  have  been  gained  in  some  industries. 

In  Germany  before  the  war,  during  the  last  twelve 
years,  the  skilled  workers  increased  their  wages  25  per 
cent,  but  the  cost  of  living  increased  41  per  cent.  Other 
countries  have  jogged  behind  very  much  like  that.  In 
England  the  workers  increased  their  wages  the  last 
twenty  years  seven  million  pounds  sterling,  while  the 
cost  of  living  increased  thirty  million.  Where  is  the  real 
advance  made? 

There  is  a  dire  need  of  a  militant  minority  in  every 
organization  to  stir  the  whole  labor  movement  into  new 


20  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

life.  A  labor  movement  that  falls  behind  economically 
is  dead,  and  the  militant  minority  of  the  capitalist  class 
will  soon  find  a  way  of  putting  it  on  the  scrap-heap  as  a 
benevolent  association. 

The  Dublin  strike  in  1913  in  Ireland,  that  stirred  all 
Europe,  was  largely  the  work  of  a  few  militants.  The 
cost  of  living  had  advanced  by  leaps  while  wages  had  re- 
mained behind.  If  it  had.  not  been  for  the  conservative 
labor  leaders  in  England  that  strike  would  have  been  a 
success  instead  of  a  compromise. 

In  the  conference  held  in  London  to  consider  the  gen- 
eral strike  and  militant  tactics  that  year,  the  old  labor 
leaders  scored  Jim  Larkin  as  a  firebrand,  while  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  workers  throughout  the  British  Isle  stood 
by  him,  and  many  of  the  leaders  had  to  fall  in  line. 


THE    GENERAL    STRIKE 

From  the  very  beginning  of  the  labor  movement  the 
general  strike  has  more  or  less  agitated  the  minds  of 
the  workers.  The  socialists  advocated  the  use  of  the 
general  strike  to  gain  the  franchise,  and  they  have  used 
a  general  strike  several  times  in  different  countries  to  get 
the  franchise  extended.  As  late  as  in  1913  there  was  a 
general  strike  in  Belgium  instituted  to  gain  the  manhood 
suffrage. 

The  syndicalists  propose  to  use  the  general  strike  to 
overthrow  the  employing  class.  But  the  socialists  in 
Germany  and  other  countries  decry  this  as  ''general  non- 
sense." It  is  easy  to  see  why  politicians  should  cry  down 
a  general  strike  as  general  nonsense,  except  when  it  is 
carried  on  to  extend  the  votes,  because  it  strips  the  politi- 
cian of  the  mission  of  being  a  working  class  savior  in  the 
parliament.  But  the  general  strike  idea  becomes  more 
and  more  popular.  The  C.  G.  T.  in  France  has  a  general 
strike  committee  of  twelve  members,  whose  duty  it  is  to 
agitate  and  educate  the  workers  for  the  general  strike. 


LABOR  UNIONS  21 

It  is  claimed  that  the  general  strike  is  bad  because  so 
far  general  strikes  have  been  failures.  The  social  upris- 
ing in  Russia  in  1905  was  a  failure,  true.  But  it  was 
chiefly  a  failure  because  the  workers  were  not  prepared 
to  use  it.  The  workers  in  St.  Petersburg  only  a  little 
while  before  were  so  ignorant  that  they  could  be  led 
by  the  thousands  by  the  priest,  Gappon,  in  front  of  the 
winter  palace  to  petition  their  little  white  father,  the  czar, 
for  freedom,  only  to  be  shot  down  like  so  many  sheep. 
For  the  first  time  in  Russian  history  the  czar  was  forced 
to  grant  some  sort  of  political  liberty. 

The  general  strike  in  Sweden  in  1909  was  a  failure 

because  it  was  not  a  general  strike  to  begin  with,  but  it 
was,  on  the  contrary,  a  general  lockout.  For  years  the 
wide-awake  Swedish  workers  had  seen  the  storm  coming. 
They  knew  that  the  employing  class  had  grown  more  and 
more  arrogant,  because  the  workers  organizations  had 
become  more  and  more  conservative  under  the  leadership 
of  socialist  politicians,  who  promised  that  all  would 
come  through  the  capitalist  parliament,  if  the  workers 
would  be  quiet  on  the  economic  field.  The  general  strike 
was  declared  to  be  nothing  but  a  vain  dream  or  general 
nonsense,  echoing  the  German  socialists. 

When  the  employing  class  began  to  throw  thousands 
of  workers  out  and  declaring  a  general  lockout  through- 
out the  nation  if  the  workers  did  not  come  to  terms,  the 
conservative  labor  leaders  and  the  politicians  began  to 
sing  a  different  tune,  and  they  now  declared  that  a  general 
strike  had  to  be  called  to  offset  the  general  lockout.  They 
suddenly  had  to  become  nonsensical.  But  such  a  bunch 
of  cowards  were  not  fitted  to  lead  a  general  strike.  As 
politicians  they  could  think  of  nothing  but  how  to  retain 
the  good  will  of  the  public.  Hence,  a  general  strike  was 
called,  leaving  all  the  necessary  workers  to  carry  on  the 
daily  sanitary  work  and  social  conveniences.  The  trans- 
port workers,  the  gas  and  electric  workers,  the  scaven- 
gers, etc.,  were  left  to  keep  the  dear  public  in  good  humor 
and  conveniences,  so  that  they  could  see  that  the  workers' 
politicians  were  real  humane.  And  the  dear  public  re- 
warded the  working  class  by  sticking  tongues  out  at 


22  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

them,  and  called  them — traitors,  outlaws,  human  beasts, 
etc.  The  conservative  politico-labor  leaders  would  not 
and  could  not,  as  representatives  in  the  parliament,  be- 
come enemies  of  the  public.  The  government  declared 
that  the  workers  had  placed  themselves  outside  the  pro- 
tection of  the  state.  Very  naturally,  as  the  state  is  for  the 
protection  of  the  employing  class. 

The  general  lockout  will  force  the  general  strike.  In 
a  conflict  between  two  forces  the  stronger  seeks  to  anni- 
hilate the  weaker.  The  bosses,  feeling  the  weakness  of 
the  labor  movement,  decided  to  break  its  backbone  in  a 
general  onslaught.  If  the  workers  so  organize  that  they 
can  carry  on  offensive  strikes  instead  of  defensive  they 
will  become  conscious  of  their  power,  and  the  tables  will 
be  turned  and  all  the  drivel  about  the  impossibility  of  a 
general  strike  will  disappear. 

A  general  strike  cannot  be  avoided.  The  sooner  the 
workers  get  that  into  their  heads  the  better  for  them. 
The  California  workers  in  Stockton  have  already  had  the 
taste  of  a  general  local  lockout,  and  that  undoubtedly  will 
be  a  mere  beginning.  In  a  general  strike  all  the  workers 
that  are  needed  to  carry  on  the  daily  routine  of  social 
and  public  work  should  be  withdrawn.  A  general  local 
strike  should  put  the  locality  in  darkness  and  the  traffic 
to  a  standstill  and  other  things  equally  drastic.  Strike 
where  the  blows  count  immediately !  and  the  fight  will 
soon  end  in  victory  for  the  workers.  But  if  the  \vorkers 
don't  dare  to  strike  where  the  blows  count,  they  should 
not  fight  at  all ;  for  the  result  will  be  defeat.  And  the 
end  of  the  whole  labor  movement  will  be  defeat.  The 
ruling  class  in  each  country  will  ride  down  the  workers 
in  general  lockouts  until  they  have  brought  them  to  their 
knees. 

A  general  lockout  was  staged  in  the  Scandinavian 
countries  for  1916  on  account  of  the  success  of  the  differ- 
ent lockouts  in  those  countries.  The  general  lockout  in 
Sweden  that  goes  under  the  name  of  a  general  strike  was 
such  a  howling  success  for  the  bosses  that  they  wanted 
an  international  lockout.  All  this  while  people  go  about 
telling  that  a  general  strike  is  impossible  and  point  to  the 


LABOR  UNIONS  23 

failure  of  the   general   strike   in   Sweden,   which   was   a 
failure  because  no  preparation  had  been  made  for  it. 

After  four  weeks  these  impossible  leaders  consented 
against  the  wishes  of  the  rank  and  file  to  a  rational  cleav- 
age of  the  workers.  This  cleavage  meant  that  all  the  work- 
ers not  belonging  to  the  Merchants,  Manufacturers  and 
Employers  Association  should  go  back  to  work.  And 
when  they  rushed  back  to  work  it  created  a  general  stam- 
pede among  all  the  strikers,  and  all  rushed  back  anxious 
to  get  their  jobs  back  at  all  costs.  It  crushed  the  whole 
labor  movement  in  Sweden  for  the  time  being.  The 
Scandinavian  employing  class  now  prepared  for  an  inter- 
national lockout  by  having  all  the  contracts  run  out  with 
labor  in  1916,  and  they  openly  boasted  that  they  would 
crush  labor  in  a  general  lockout  at  that  time,  which  per- 
haps is  off  on  account  of  the  war. 

In  France  there  has  already  been  two  general  strikes 
of  the  railroad  workers.  Both  are  reported  to  have  been 
failures,  yet,  this  has  not  cooled  the  French  workers' 
ardor  for  a  general  strike.  Incidentally  we  may  report 
that  the  employing  class  of  France  has  never  become 
gay  over  the  notion  of  lockouts  or  the  practice  of  them. 

Aristide  Briand,  the  first  socialist  prime  minister  in 

the  world  and  in  France,  was  in  his  powerful  political 
seat  in  1910  when  the  general  strike  broke  out  on  the 
railroad.  He  declared  the  strikers  outlaws,  and  he  had 
the  strike  committee  arrested  in  the  office  of  "Humanite,* 
the  socialist  paper  that  he  had  been  editor  of,  and  in 
whose  columns  he  had  posed  as  the  most  revolutionary 
socialist.  He  also  drafted  the  strikers  into  the  army  to 
run  and  protect  the  railroads  they  were  striking  on,  be- 
longing to  Rothschild.  A  good  many  of  the  strikers  took 
their  Socialist  Briand  conscript  orders,  put  them  in  a 
sack  and  sent  them  back  to  the  revolutionary  socialist  in 
power,  who  had  shown  what  he  could  do.  Viviani  and 
Millerand,  two  socialist  cabinet  ministers  in  the  French 
parliament,  did  not  do  much  better  toward  the  workers 
during  their  term  of  office.  No  wonder  the  French  work- 
ers turned  their  backs  on  the  socialist  politicians.  They 
learned  by  experience  that  all  brands  of  politicians  serve 


24  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

them  alike.  Yet,  there  are  people  who  have  the  nerve  to 
circulate  the  stupid  rot  that  the  French  workers  are  not 
socialist-politico  because  the  industries  are  small  in 
France. 

The  whole  socialist  press  turned  its  batteries  on 
Briand,  the  traitor,  thus  incidentally  shielding-  the 
Rothschild,  the  owners  of  the  railroads.  Briand  the  so- 
cialist, as  prime  minister,  became  the  lurid  light  beyond 
which  the  workers  could  not  see.  The  real  oppressors  on 
the  economic  field  were  forgotten  and  hidden  behind 
Briand. 

This  general  strike  was  also  premature.  The  workers 
on  the  railroads  were  divided.  Half  of  them  belonged  to 
centralized,  conservative  unions,  while  only  half  of  them 
were  revolutionary  and  de-centralized.  The  latter  rushed 
out,  thinking  that  the  conservatives  would  go  out  with 
them,  but  they  first  had  to  dicker  with  their  authoritative 
officials,  and  when  the  strike  committee  was  arrested,  the 
strike  was  declared  off. 

But  the  strikers  struck  on  the  job  and  won  all  the 
points  that  they  struck  for.  The  strikers  demoralized  the 
whole  railroad  system.  Trains  could  not  reach  any 
destination  in  time.  Freight  cars  became  so  mixed  up 
that  freight  did  not  reach  its  destination  at  all.  Telegraph 
wires  separated  by  the  mile.  The  telegraph  system 
was  put  out  of  order.  The  railroad  bosses  got  wise  and 
granted  the  demands. 

This  general  strike  was  therefore  not  a  failure.  In  the 
future  the  workers  will  learn  that  direct  action  in  the 
shop  is  a  powerful  weapon  in  their  hands. 

The  first  general  strike  in  the  United  States  for  the 
eight-hour  day  (1886)  was  said  to  be  a  failure.  But  was 
it?  True,  the  so-called  anarchists  were  hanged,  and  the 
press  and  pulpit  went  on  a  drunken  spree  of  abuse  against 
labor.  But  it  created  a  reaction  that  was  all  in  favor  of 
labor.  The  anarchist  hanging  served  as  an  eye-opener  to 
the  whole  working  cla-ss.  The  Haymarket  martyrs  did 
not  die  in  vain. 

There  was  a  general  strike  in  Italy  in  the  summer  of 
1914,  which  was  a  success  and  which  gave  the  govern- 


LABOR  UNIONS  25 

ment  a  thorough  scare.  A  successful  general  strike,  how- 
ever, must  be  preceded  by  preparation  in  local  general 
strikes  with  their  sympathy  strikes  and  by  educational 
campaigns. 

At  a  social,  general  strike  the  military  forces  are  ren- 
dered powerless  by  the  impossibility  of  transporting  sol- 
diers and  means  from  place  to  place.  The  points  of  at- 
tack will  be  everywhere  at  the  same  time,  and  determined 
picket  lines  will  prevent  the  middle  class  to  act  as  scabs. 


THE    UNEMPLOYED    ARMY 

The  most  serious  question  of  the  working  class  is  the 
unemployed  army.  This  army  forms  the  most  effective 
club  in  the  hands  of  the  employing  class.  The  workers 
who  work  dare  not  stir.  The  threat  of  discharge  hangs 
over  their  head  like  the  proverbial  sword  on  a  thread. 

This  unemployed  army  is  created,  as  already  men- 
tioned, by  the  failure  of  labor  to  keep  up  Avith  the  techni- 
cal improvement  of  labor-saving  devices.  The  mere  men- 
tion of  a  four-hour  day  at  this  time  cannot  be  considered 
in  the  present  state  of  labor,  except  as  a  far  cry  in  the 
wilderness. 

Society  is  exultant  every  time  a  new  machine  appears 
that  displaces  labor.  It  rejoices  over  the  inventive  in- 
geniousness  displayed,  without  a  single  thought  for  the 
people  that  it  displaces. 

The  provisions  that  municipalities  and  State  reform 
advocators  try  to  put  through  to  relieve  the  unemployed 
are  all  hurtful  to  labor  as  a  whole. 

If  roads  are  built,  parks  laid  out,  streets  and  lots 
cleaned,  stump-land  cleared  by  cheap  labor  under  the  ex- 
cuse that  half  a  day's  wage  is -better  than  no  wages  for 
the  unemployed,  the  working  class  must  eventually  fall 
to  the  level  of  the  State  and  municipal  workers.  The 
laborer  is  first  on  the  list  to  feel  it. 

To  beautify  a  city  with  cheap,  starvation  labor,  is  to 
strengthen  the  employing  class'  property  by  degrading 


26  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

human  beings,  and  to  keep  the  workers  in  a  treadmill 
when  it  is  carried  out  to  its  logical  conclusion. 

Reformers  advocate  that  the  government  so  time  its 
road  constructions  and  other  activities  to  absorb  the  un- 
employed in  a  large  measure  during  times  of  industrial 
depressions,  which  means  that  the  government  will  be 
able  to  save  the  taxpayers  a  great  deal  of  money  at  the 
expense  of  the  unemployed  €ind  at  the  same  time  keep  a 
reserved  unemployed  army  in  readiness  for  the  capitalist 
class,  to  be  rushed  into  the  industries  the  moment  there  is 
boom  time,  to  prevent  any  increase  in  wages.  The  more 
one  studies  the  unemployed  question,  the  more  one  real- 
izes that  it  is  THE  question  around  which  the  real  ad- 
vancement or  retrogression  of  the  whole  working  class 
swirls. 

What  can  the  working  class  do  to  get  out  of  this 
mire?  Evidently  it  does  not  do  any  good  to  put  into  the 
market  cheap  goods  made  for  temporary  relief  by  the 
unemployed  because  it  only  puts  the  worker  who  is  on 
regular  pay  out  of  work.  Again,  if  the  unemployed  be- 
come criminals  and  run  into  the  penitentiaries  they  again 
produce  all  kinds  of  goods  that  puts  the  men  and  women 
out  of  jobs  or  cheapen  their  work. 

We  have  in  years  past  heard  so  much,  from  the  so- 
called  revolutionists,  about  what  would  happen  when 
thousands  stand  without  jobs.  Millions  are  here  now 
and  nothing  has  happened.  The  philosophy  of  misery 
is  evidently  a  fallacy.  Courage  doesn't  travel  on  an 
empty  stomach.  Courage  flees  from  the  man  and  woman 
who  is  ill-fed  or  hungry.  The  unemployed  cannot  organize 
except  for  momentary  demonstrations,  and  these  demon- 
strations can  easily  be  scattered  by  the  authorities,  and 
it  all  simmers  down  to  immediate  relief  by  charity  or 
cheap  work  or  each  for  himself.  We  need  not  dream 
about  revolution  via  the  unemployed  army. 

In  the  French  revolution  the  hungry  mob  was  backed 
by  the  business  element  who  were  bent  on  putting  the 
feudal  lords  and  their  king  out  of  business  to  become  the 
ruling  class.  If  organized  labor  had  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  they  wanted  to  put  the  capitalist  out  of  busi- 


LABOR  UNIONS  27 

ness  in  an  uprising,  they,  too,  could  make  up  of  the  hun- 
gry mob  for  that  purpose,  but  they  have  not.  The  work- 
ers are  not  apt  to  become  revolutionary  as  long  as  they  on 
the  whole  are  compelled  to  work  in  fear  and  trembling 
of  discharge. 


NEO-MALTHUSIAN    MOVEMENT 

Organized  labor  in  their  present  state  are  not  in  a  con- 
dition mentally  or  financially  to  help  the  unemployed, 
except  a  few  who  belong  to  the  different  unions.  What 
are  we  to  do? 

The  child  is  father  to  the  man.  The  army  of  unem- 
ployed of  from  twenty  to  thirty-five  years  of  age,  that 
many  years  hence,  is  still  unborn.  Shall  they  be  born? 
Or  will  the  workers  control  the  child-birth,  and  limit  their 
families  as  the  upper  classes  are  doing?  Every  farmer 
who  is  not  incompetent  carefully  breeds  and  limits  his 
stock  to  get  a  strong,  healthy,  valuable  breed.  In  fact  all 
educated  classes  of  people  limit  and  control  their  off- 
springs. It  is  only  the  savages  and  the  working  class  who 
breed  their  kind  indiscriminately  and  ignorantly,  without 
any  serious  thought  of  the  future  of  that  life  that  they 
place  in  the  world.  They  blindly  follow  their  passions 
without  thoughts  of  the  results.  The  ruling  classes  are 
anxious  to  have  cheap  labor,  and  cheap  labor  can  only 
be  had  by  an  unlimited  supply  of  workers.  Hence,  the 
information  of  the  control  of  child-bearing  is  made  crim- 
inal in  the  United  States,  while  in  Europe,  so  far,  it  can 
be  openly  circulated.  And  the  working  classes  have 
established  international  societies  to  teach  the  workers 
Neo-Malthusianism,  as  it  is  called. 

Race-control  is  called  race-suicide  by  the  ruling 
classes,  while  they  have  very  little  to  say  about  race- 
degeneracy  resulting  from  over-crowded  families  in  pov- 
erty, where  the  mother  and  the  father  are  both  taken 
away  from  the  children  to  enable  them  to  feed  them  at 
all.  They  have  very  little  to  say  about  the  crime  of  set- 
ting children  in  this  world  who  are  doomed  before  they 
are  born  to  a  life  of  hardship  and  misery,  that  ends  in 


28  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

the  potter's  field  via  ill-nourishment,  reformatories, 
sweat-shops,  jails  and  penitentiaries.  All  working  class 
social  ignorance  makes  for  a  rich  harvest  of  profit.  Out 
of  millions  of  helpless  workers,  millionaires  are  made. 
The  crowded  family  misery  of  the  workers  is  the  pool  out 
of  which  the  rich  dip  out  their  riches, 

The  workers  collectively  are  too  ill-informed  to  realize 
the  direct  importance  of  the  control  of  child-birth  in  their 
struggle  for  existence.  They  foolishly  think  that  it  is. a 
side  issue. 

Let  every  thoughtful,  working  class  father  or  mother 
go  to  reliable  doctors  or  trained  nurses  until  he  or  she 
gets  the  information  sought.  If  drugs  or  abortion  is 
advocated,  turn  it  down.  Havelock  Ellis,  the  famous 
English  writer  on  feminism,  has  written  fully  on  this 
subject.  His  book  can  be  had  in  nearly  every  library, 
provided  one  can  show  that  he  is  a  student  of  medicine 
or  a  doctor.  So  that  doctors  cannot  plead  ignorance. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  United  States  that  could  show 
more  conclusively  that  it  is  ruled  by  the  economic  inter- 
est of  the  upper  class  than  that  such  valuable  information 
to  the  human  race  is  forbidden  to  be  circulated  in  the 
open;  for  the  educated  know  how  to  get  it;  while  the 
ignorant  and  foolish  hear  about  it  and  become  preys  of 
misinformation  and  shysters,  who  prey  upon  their  pocket- 
books  and  diseased  minds  and  bodies.  The  workers  have 
a  right  to  the  full,  scientific  knowledge  of  any  and  every- 
thing, and  no  laws  or  ruling  class  have  any  right  whatso- 
ever to  say  what  they  shall  or  shall  not  know.  There  was 
a  time  when  the  workers  were  not  allowed  to  read  the 
Bible  for  themselves  because  it  was  supposed  to  be  harm- 
ful to  them.  Now  they  are  not  allowed  to  inform  them- 
selves on  sex  matter  because  it  is  claimed  by  a  lot  of 
"mutts"  in  congress  and  elsewhere  that  they  are  not 
fitted  to  have  the  knowledge. 

The  cry  of  race-suicide  is  a  mere  blind  to  delude  the 
ignorant.  Nothing  is  more  ridiculous  than  to  hear  in 
the  gatherings  composed  sometimes  of  old  maids  and 
old  bachelors,  all  about  the  duty  of  bringing  children  into 
the  world.  According  to  Professor  Knut  Wicksell,  one 


LABOR  UNIONS  29 

of  the  most  famous  sociologists  in  Sweden,  the  human 
race  at  the  present  rate  of  births  and  deaths  is  doubling 
itself  every  seventy  years.  It  means  that  today  we  have 
twice  as  many  human  beings  in  the  world  as  we  had 
seventy  years  ago. 

The  increase  in  population  takes  place  almost  exclu- 
sively among  the  poorest  workers,  where  it  acts  as  a 
millstone  around  the  neck  of  the  whole  working  class. 
It  is  therefore  to  the  greatest  interest  of  the  better  in- 
formed and  better  paid  workers  to  see  to  it  that  a  stop  is 
made  to  this  state  of  affairs. 

If  there  is  any  cardinal  sin  in  this  world,  it  must  be 
to  degrade  the  human  race,  to  keep  it  in  ignorance, 
poverty  and  disease  and  helplessness.  If  there  is  any 
cardinal  virtue  in  this  world,  it  must  be  to  raise  only 
strong,  healthy,  happy  children,  that  as  men  and  women 
will  be  strong-minded  and  strong-limbed,  who  will  not 
tolerate  injustice  and  who  cannot  be  deceived  by  mushy 
philosophy  or  over-awed  by  a  set  of  money-changers. 

The  unemployed  army  will  gradually  lose  its  recruits 

by  the  control  of  child-birth  among  the  workers  until  it 
disappears  altogether.  The  workers  cannot  be  harassed 
then  in  their  work  by  the  arrogance  of  the  bosses,  who 
boasts  that  outside  stand  ten  people  anxious  to  get  the 
job.  The  workers  will  lose  their  fear  and  it  will  be  the  turn 
of  the  boss  to  fear  that  he  will  lose  his  workers  and  that 
they  will  want  more  pay  and  shorter  hours.  In  other 
words,  the  boss  will  be  on  the  defense,  the  workers  will 
take  the  offense. 

The  only  objection  of  any  value  to  it  that  can  be 
advanced  is  that — it  is  too  slow.  From  twenty  to  forty 
years  seem  a  long  time  to  those  who  want  a  remedy  over 
night.  But  in  the  last  few  years  the  workers  have  gained 
very  little  and  they  will  gain  very  little  the  next  few 
years  unless  they  use  every  means  at  their  command 
and  become  keen  and  sharp  and  careful  in  their  planning. 


30  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

EDUCATION 

The  working  class  is  travelling  very  slowly.  But  it 
has  travelled  a  long  way  since  a  worker  had  absolutely  no 
right.  The  men  who  first  formed  organizations  had  not 
only  the  whole  of  the  employing  class  to  fight,  but  a 
very  great  part  of  their  own  class,  and  very  often  their 
own  families. 

The  one  great  obstacle  in  the  labor  movement  is  the 

ignorance  of  the  workers  themselves.  The  common 
school  system  is  supposed  to  educate  the  workers'  chil- 
dren. But  this  system  is  used  by  the  dominating  class 
to  so  educate  the  children  that  they  can  see  nothing 
wrong  in  our  social  injustice.  Not  only  are  the  little 
minds  shaped  so  that  they  can  see  nothing  wrong,  but 
they  see  that  it  is  wrong  to  change  it.  Their  little  minds 
are  actually  so  warped  that  they  think  that  it  is  wrong 
for  the  workers  to  fight  for  the  product  of  their  labor. 

Our  educational  system  is  a  hive  of  misinformation. 
It  is  a  machine  that  grinds  out  so  many  little  enemies  of 
the  working  class  economic  freedom.  History,  science 
and  sociology  are  all  twisted  to  show  that  the  workers 
are  composed  of  inferior  people,  while  the  employing 
class  is  composed  of  superior  people.  The  most  ill-paid 
workers,  in  a  dozen  indirect  ways,  are  placed  before  the 
child-mind,  as  being  the  most  brainless,  while  the  richest 
men  in  the  same  manner  are  placed  before  it  as  Hercules 
in  brain-power.  The  whole  educational  system  mentally 
kills  the  workers'  children  in  the  interest  of  the  present 
social  injustice.  It  is  not  until  the  children  learn  for 
themselves  in  the  brutal  conditions  out  in  the  world,  that 
they  become  valuable  to  the  labor  movement. 

Many  privileged  workers  are  needed  who  get  good  sal- 
aries, and  they  never  change  their  minds;  they  form  a 
sort  of  bodyguard  around  the  privileged  class. 

The  workers  are  beginning  to  see  that  they  must  start 
schools  for  their  children.  So  we  are  getting  the  Ferrer 
schools.  Ferrer  taught  the  child  self-reliance,  by  permit- 
ting it  to  reach  out  and  get  the  knowledge  that  it  desired ; 


LABOR  UNIONS  31 

he  taught  it  self-discipline  by  co-ordination,  instead  of 
discipline  by  sub-ordination ;  he  taught  it  natural  and 
social  sciences  as  they  are,  without  any  creeds.  In  short, 
he  permitted  the  child  to  grow  into  a  human  being 
capable  of  reasoning  for  itself.  This  was  a  crime.  Ferrer 
had  to  be  killed  by  the  Spanish  government.  But  his 
schools  live  after  him,  and  are  called  the  modern  schools. 
They  are  feebly  springing  into  life  all  over  the  world. 
New  York  has  quite  a  large  modern  school.  When  the 
workers  wake  up  to  the  importance  of  having  their  chil- 
dren with  them  in  their  struggle  the  modern  school  will 
come  to  the  front.  Take  the  privilege  away  from  the 
ruling  class  of  shaping  the  workers'  minds  through  the 
educational  system  and  one  of  their  greatest  advantages 
is  gone  forever. 


CO-OPERATIVES 

The  first  co-operatives  of  the  workers  were  built  uoon 
the  capitalist  principles.  Shares  in  them  were  sold  to 
Tom,  Dick  and  Harry  of  all  classes,  who  bought  them  to 
get  dividend.  They  were  ruled  at  the  top  by  a  board  of 
trustees  who  selected  the  managers,  and  who  hired  and 
fired  the.  workers,  to  get  the  most  out  of  them,  just  like 
any  other  capitalist  concern.  A  great  many  of  these 
mercantile  co-operatives  still  flourish  all  over  the  world, 
and  some  of  them  have  grown  into  immense,  powerful 
concerns.  While  the  agricultural  co-operatives  mostly 
failed.  In  all  cases  they  were  patterned  after  the  ruling 
class  institutions,  and  neither  the  success  nor  the  failure 
of  them  helped  the  workers. 

A  new  kind  of  co-operatives  have  come  into  existence, 
put  into  the  field  by  the  different  labor  unions.  The 
bakers  in  Belgium  have  a  splendid  co-operative  bakery, 
managed  and  run  by  the  bakers  themselves  who  work 
in  it.  They  gather  to  decide  what  to  do,  how  much 
wages  they  are  to  pay  themselves,  how  many  hours  they 
shall  work,  what  they  shall  do  with  any  money  over  and 
above  all  expenses,  etc.  The  glass  workers  syndicate  in 
Italy,  which  controls  over  one-half  of  the  national  output 


32  LIVING  OR  DEAD 

of  that  country,  built  their  co-operative  on  the  same 
principles.  They  absolutely  refuse  to  draw  dividends,  and 
use  their  net  profit  to  educate  and  further  the  interests 
of  the  whole  working  class.  The  agricultural  workers 
in  Italy  also  have  a  large  arid  successful  co-operative, 
formed  on  the  same  basis.  So  have  the  hatters  in  France. 
But  these  co-operatives  are  formed  by  and  for  the  work- 
ers themselves  who  work  in  them,  and  who  know  all 
about  the  trade.  They  need  no  expensive  officials  to  drive 
them,  and  they  certainly  would  not  tolerate  the  paying 
of  dividends  to  some  outsiders,  which  only  perpetuates 
the  same  old  injustice 

It  is  up  to  the  laundry  workers'  union  to  start  co- 
operative laundries  or  the  bakers'  union  to  start  co-opera- 
tive bakeries,  and  so  on.  Most  unions  have  large  sums 
of  money  in  the  capitalists'  banks  that -could  be  used  for 
that  purpose.  The  co-operative  could  easily  pay  the 
small  interest  that  the  bank  pays  to  their  own  union. 

The  workers  in  these  co-operatives  get  confidence  in 

their  own  ability  to  run  the  industries,  which  is  of  great 
educational  value.  By  cutting  out  the  dividends  and 
high  salaried  officials,  goods  can  be  sold  cheaper  and  of 
better  quality,  thereby  cutting  down  the  cost  of  living, 
and  thereby  beginning  to  cut  out  the  middle  class. 

But  these  co-operatives  cannot  duplicate  the  railroads, 
the  mines,  and  other  institutions  under  the  capitalist 
regime.  They  can  only  help.  The  co-operatives  can  sup- 
port education  on  various  lines. 

To  conclude,  no  one  thing  counts.  Family  limitations 
without  revolutionary  education  would  only  produce 
healthy,  smug  workers.  Labor  unions  without  the  ideal 
of  the  abolition  of  the  wage  system  can  have  no  real  life 
and  mission.  Local  autonomy,  the  militant  minority- 
all  can  have  little  permanent  value — unless  all  of  these 
things  combined  point  to  the  road  of  emancipation  from 
the  wage  system. 


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